how your heart met mine
by ember53608
Summary: he's looking to get back into the game, she's looking to chance upon some opportunity. as two members of the same shatterdome, their paths are bound to cross, right? [pacific rim au.]


I have worked my ass off on this and I am _tired._ Also, this may not be update until like mid-February given the hell that January is going to be for me.

As always, read and review, please!

* * *

The mission is in itself a simple one.

Sakura and Ino are to detain a category two Kaiju that somehow maneuvered its way out of the Kiri Shatterdome's designated deployment area. It's suspected that the Kaiju will be followed by another of its kind, although the pair of women assigned to the job are confident in their reputable abilities. Sakura has faced much worse than most Jaeger pilots ever dream of experiencing, and Ino has made a name for herself as both an expert on the technological basis for the Drift and a naturally talented pilot. There's close to no doubt that the mission will go through as a success, and Sakura decides to treat the day to come as if it were any other.

"Ready?" Ino asks, strapping herself in before the inevitable drop.

"Of course." Sakura nods firmly, then throws a few practice punches. Though the Konoha Jaegers lack the agility needed to complement the combined speed and force of her infamous punches, the Shatterdome's resident nightmare more than makes up for it with her hours of training and on-field experience. She's learned in recent years, after all, how to most make her efforts count.

As the floor beneath them gives way to a long drop, Sakura sucks in her breath and closes her eyes. The clicking of her gear into the mainframe of the Jaeger resonates throughout her entire body upon them reaching solid ground. Tsunade's voice at her ear is but a whisper, blotted out by the initiation of the Drift and the flood of memories to go with it. She sifts through the familiar voices and images as if rifling through a newspaper, taking care only to touch on the memories rather than delve into them.

A crack can be heard throughout the chamber as Ino rolls out her neck. With a determined grin, the blonde yells out, "Let's kick some ass, then!"

"Yeah!" Sakura yells in return, and the blood starts to churn through her veins.

The overwhelming scent of the sea has never been something the Jaegers have been able to keep from filtering through their mechanics. As soon as the Haru no Hana, as the girls like to call their Jaeger, plunges into the water, the pungent tint of salt to the air fills every empty space. Sakura breathes in with a satisfied hum before directing her gaze to the radar. The Kaiju is less than five hundred meters away, and it conveniently tears through the water right towards them.

"Seventh formation!" Ino dictates.

Sakura grunts and makes an outward bow with the whole of her arm, splaying out her fingers in anticipation of grabbing the Kaiju. Ino's movements are the opposite of hers, with her forming an inward bow that she thrusts into the water so as to grab the Kaiju from down under. They train their eyes on the radar, anticipating the arrival of the ever closer target.

Sakura senses the Kaiju seconds before it tumbles into their grasp. "Now!" she yells, but too late, not giving Ino enough time to force the Kaiju upward with her hand. It cuts a sharp path between the both of their hands. Ino grunts aloud as hers is pushed slightly against its normal structural path. "I'm fine," she says before Sakura can ask.

But the pink-haired pilot is paying her no attention, instead roving her eyes over the two dots that quickly move across the circle of their shared radar. One of the dots is clearly larger than the other, which would normally be no problem given the difference in Kaiju size from one level to the next, except for the fact that the second, much smaller dot cannot even be registered as a Kaiju, rather - a human. Sakura opens her mouth to speak, but not before a voice cuts in over the com link.

"I'm aware, Sakura," says Tsunade, the steely Marshal of the Konoha Shatterdome. Her breath can be heard in the frothing static that travels over the com link, although neither of the girls complains. The Kaiju is barreling out to a point far from them and, judging by previous experiences and related calculations, can be expected to turn around at any moment so as to barrel at them with just as much, if not more, speed. Sakura and Ino hold their breath and keep their eyes trained on the radar, patiently awaiting further orders.

A pointed sigh from Tsunade, then: "Proceed normally. Treat it like any other mission."

"Affirmative," Ino replies, and without a second thought, they start to pivot. The Kaiju has made its rebound by this point; it closes the distance between them with frightening speed and shows no sign of stopping to fit into the Jaeger's hands this time. A look is exchanged between the co-pilots before they adjust to form a common but efficient blocking maneuver. Sakura keeps her hand poised above her thrust charge initiator just in case, her fists ready to fly out with powerful punches if necessary.

The impact is at the knees, but it can be felt throughout the entire mechanism. Sakura shouts as she's pushed back against her weight. Ino, prepared for the force of the impact from before, takes no time in punching an array of buttons and making a fist. Her arm of the Jaeger can be heard humming violently as it pulses with energy, and with the flip of one final switch, she lets loose a cascade of sound waves that vibrate at a frequency undetectable by humans but felt magnanimously by Kaiju. Sakura resists the urge to clap her hands to her ears as the Kaiju lets out a bloodcurdling scream. The waves are designed to fire off at a frequency that has been proven to visibly disturb the function of Kaiju white matter, scattering the monsters' thoughts in a way that is both confusing and painful.

"Was that really necessary?" Sakura shouts. Normally, the technology is only used in a worst-case scenario, which this clearly isn't. Most odd, perhaps, but not the worst.

"Just initiate your charge," Ino replies, exasperated. Her arm is still held out and completely still, so as to ensure maximum effect of the waves on the Kaiju. Sakura nods and flies through her own array of buttons and switches before initiating the infamous thrust charge technology developed for her by none other than Ino and her family. Meant to amplify the impact of her punches and make up for the lack of complementing power from the Jaeger itself, the thrust charge allows Sakura to pack the punches she so desires.

The same violent hum runs throughout the plates of her arm, and with the sound of a small 'ping', Sakura makes her move and closes her fingers into a fist. The Kaiju, detained to one spot in the ocean by its own sudden lack of coordination, only manages to flinch violently before Sakura's hand of the Jaeger makes contact with its back. A final charge pulses through the arm, and, though neither of the co-pilots notices it, the second, human register on the radar somehow manages to fall away from the Kaiju before it is fed with so much nuclear energy that it bursts into a combination of slime and flame.

Ino lets out a groan. As her hand falls away, Sakura looks curiously out into the ocean from the periscopic technology built into her helmet. The remains of the Kaiju are strewn across an expansive area about the size of an acre. She twists her nose in disgust, then punches a button on the main dashboard and says, "Marshal?"

"The human is gone," Tsunade answers.

"Well, of course it is," Ino answers. "We killed him. Her. Them."

"No," Tsunade continues, "its register on the radar disappeared fifty six milliseconds before the charge made contact with the Kaiju's skin. It went under the water to avoid the explosion."

"Humans can't breathe underwater," Ino deadpans.

"And our world isn't under siege by aliens with more than one brain," Sakura retorts. Though she doubts the validity of the Marshal's statement to an extent herself, her trust in Tsunade is one built up over the course of the three hardest years of her life. She isn't about to let some abnormal experience shake that.

"Report back to the base," says the Marshal, "and keep this quiet. I need to think."

"Understood."

"Affirmative."

The com link goes to static, and Ino allows herself a breathy laugh. Though her senses are as heightened as Sakura's after hearing that the mysterious human may have survived, she still wants to let herself celebrate her victory just a little. The kill is her fiftieth to date, and that qualifies her to move up in rank. She spares a glance at Sakura, whose brows are pinched in deep thought. "Hey, chill out. The Marshal said we'd deal with it, so we'll deal with it."

Sakura turns to look at her pointedly. "You're not worried by this at all?"

"I am," Ino admits, "but I'd like to look at the bigger picture if I can." Sakura sighs and lets slip the smallest of smiles. Even she has to admit that the thrill of a Kaiju kill is unlike that of any other. It's a fulfillment, and in the best sense of the word.

Although, to be honest, the process of coming down from the Jaeger and undressing afterwards is much less exhilarating. Sakura flips her hair back the second her helmet lifts away from her head. Her muscles ache with the strain of the piloting gear on her body, but it's nothing she can't tend do with her normal practices. Aside from being a talented Jaeger pilot, Sakura also happens to be one of the Konoha Shatterdome's resident physical therapists. Her studies, as well as her lessons under Tsunade's tutelage, have taught her how to handle whatever pressure it is that piloting a Jaeger may exert on her.

After a few more celebratory laughs over their victory, the pair of women splits off, with Ino venturing back to her personal nook in the Shatterdome and Sakura making a beeline for the Marshal's main office, i.e., the control room. Every piece of her clothing is stuck to her skin with the sweat of an exhausting mission, and she hardly looks presentable. Sakura only hopes that the pressing issue at hand will outweigh her inappropriateness of attire.

The control room has been bustling for as long as she can remember; its steady flow of traffic is what keeps missions and research moving at the necessary pace. Sakura singles out Tsunade from among a circle of her closest aides, who she assumes are currently discussing the matter of the possibly water-breathing human. She sidles up close to one of them - Shizune, who is admittedly the Marshal's closest adviser - and coughs loudly enough to be heard. The five men and women turn to look at her simultaneously.

"Marshal," Sakura acknowledges, making a quick salute. Tsunade stares at her with a mixture of annoyance and disapproval.

"I didn't ask for you to come here, Sakura."

Sakura sighs gratefully at the mention of her first name, which is a clear indicator that she isn't in as deep shit as some of the advisers would like to think. "I understand," she answers, "but I felt as if you would need me to do something given the current situation."

Tsunade smiles, then turns on her heel. She makes way for one of the engineers currently monitoring weapons and communication, a man in perhaps his mid-twenties with flat, black hair and a largely unreadable face. He doesn't so much as flinch when her hand comes to rest on his shoulder, and after a short exchange with him, the pair walks back to Sakura and the circle of advisers.

"Actually," Tsunade continues, finally, "there is something I'd like for you to do. Marshal Gaara recently requested your presence at his Shatterdome. It seems he was put into a situation where he needed to pilot a Jaeger on his own and is in need of some guidance."

"And he," Sakura counters, glancing at the engineer, "has what to do with that?"

"Sai," replies Tsunade pointedly, "will be your escort."

Sakura does a double take. "My escort?" she asks incredulously. In all of her three years as a traveling physical therapist, she's never been designated the necessity of having an escort to her destinations. Tsunade knows full well that she is capable of handling herself, and ability to defend herself aside, Marshal Gaara is undeniably one of the most amicable people that anyone in Konoha has ever met. She doubts there will be a need to defend herself if she's tending to him, or even his staff, for that matter. What tension once existed between the two Shatterdomes has completely evaporated, and this all because of one of her own closest friends.

"There's a chopper waiting for you outside," is all that the Marshal offers before turning back to her counsel. Sakura stares dumbfoundedly at the engineer, who has yet to say even a word. He lets a small smile slip as he walks past her. Evidently, he knows who she is, or he wouldn't be strutting so confidently in her wake. Sakura has never seen him before in her years living on-base, but then again, he does work in the control room, which she barely bothers to enter. For all she knows, he could be as old an associate of the Shatterdome's staff as she is. Most trainees, when they first come to the base, are around fifteen years old; engineers usually arrive at around the same age, looking to be trained by the famed ranks of the Yamanaka family.

"Ino talks quite a lot about you," he says at last, and to Sakura's surprise.

"Does she?" she replies, intrigued.

"Mhmm," he answers, "or at least, whenever we're not arguing, she does," and it's then that something clicks in Sakura's mind. Though her best friend has never mentioned this asshat by name, she has deigned to complain about his overwhelming arrogance and lack of solid judgement on more than one occasion. Supposedly, the two argue often over the causes of slip-ups in missions or breaches in software. Where Ino puts most of her trust in the technology backing the neural handshake, Sai puts his in the mechanics and physics of the actual Jaegers. Sakura can see how the difference in opinion could make way for multiple clashes, and though she isn't exactly taking a liking to Sai, either, the thought of him arguing with Ino does make her want to laugh.

They make a quick stop at her dorm so as to let her change into something more suitable. Sai raises his eyebrows when she walks out; for a five minute stop, she's managed to make herself into the exact opposite of what she was when stepping in: red blouse, white coat, red heels, white pants. Sakura sifts a hand through her hair, then nods briefly at Sai before making her way to the elevator shaft. The flight on the chopper will take an hour long at least, given the fact that the Suna Shatterdome rests inland rather than on water, like Konoha.

"So," Sakura asks, "what are you really here for?"

"It's like the Marshal said," he deadpans. "I'm here to be your escort."

Soured by this response, Sakura chooses simply to buckle into her seat and enjoy the ocean view. The waters are littered here and there with the still-decaying remains of Kaiju, but past all of the alien slime, they still manage to be beautiful somehow. She thinks she can even spot the remains of the Kaiju that she and Ino were deployed to eliminate. A team of what she assumes are researchers is centered around the kill-site in boats and jet-skis. Due to the unfortunate circumstance of the Kaijus' constant evolution, it's necessary for the Shatterdome Marshals to stray outside of their comfort zone. These days, every organ, every tissue, every cell of a Kaiju is considered valuable to research and eventually an all-encompassing solution. Sakura only wishes that solution could come sooner -

\- and the sight of land, which she hasn't seen in ages, makes her wish for it even harder. Though the coastline hasn't been substantially attacked in almost three years, the length of its face is still painted with the marks of desolation and destruction. In putting money towards offensive and defensive efforts, the nations involved in the Pan Pacific Defense Corps have left restoration and preservation to another, far away day. Sakura lifts her eyes as the central section of the Suna Shatterdome comes into view; contrary to its surroundings, this Jaeger-deployment base is alive with activity and fully functioning, as warranted by the funds pouring into it.

Upon landing, the pair of Konoha operatives is met by none other than Gaara's two closest advisers: his siblings, Temari and Kankurou. Sakura smiles wanly upon shaking Temari's left hand, which, unlike the other, isn't wrapped up within the confines of a cast. "No pineapple head, huh," the injured pilot murmurs. Though she and Shikamaru Nara aren't exactly rumored to be involved in any trans-base romance, they are constantly in contact with each other as advisers and strategists to their respective Marshals, and Sakura suspects that they enjoy each other's company more than they'd like to admit. Kankurou, shaking hands with Sai, winces slightly and admits that he may have been injected with some Kaiju fluids upon his part of the Jaeger being torn apart and made bare to the forces of the extraterrestrial. Sakura is more than willing to have a look at it.

The path to the Marshal's office is a twisted one. Sakura almost grows bored just passing through the bare, yellow walls and dark, damp elevator shafts, but then Gaara's face comes into view, and she tries to brighten her mood. He looks incredibly pained, with teardrops of sweat running down his forehead as an attendant dabs at one of his scars, still seeping with blood. Sakura shoos away the young woman before taking her own seat next to the Marshal and commandeering the first aid kit. "I'll need more than this," she says, and Gaara nods.

"Of course," he says, "whatever you need, you'll have."

"Sai," she continues, and the engineer looks at her in bewilderment, "I'll need you to work on extracting the foreign fluids from Kankurou's arm."

"I'm an engineer, mind you."

"And engineers are capable of following instructions, last time I checked."

He mutters a curse word (most likely directed at her) under his breath, but Sakura chooses to refrain once again from biting back, instead directing her gaze to the new, searing scars that have been pressed into the planes of Gaara's bare back. He hasn't yet told her how he came to be separated from his siblings in piloting their Jaeger, but to Sakura, the story won't really make much of a difference. The experiences of 'Berserkers', as they have come to be called, are essentially all the same. One mishap or misfortune leads to the next, leads to the next, and somehow they find themselves piloting a Jaeger, or the remains of one, all on their own, the terrible ordeal leaving its permanent mark in their skin. Gaara is one of nine spread out across the five Shatterdomes and their smaller, connected branches. Sakura's friend from three years ago is another, although she doesn't like to talk about it.

"Actually," the Marshal speaks up about half an hour later, when Sakura is jotting down notes about his PT regimen for the next few weeks, "my injuries aren't the only reason I called you here."

She stops her pencil in the middle of a word and looks up, surprised. Though she does happen to be one of the Konoha Marshal's closest disciples, she doubts that it would be appropriate for her to discuss larger matters with the Marshal of Suna. Her gaze strays to Sai, who is doing an excellent (but not wholesome) job of training his eyes on the bandages he's wrapping around the front of Kankurou's arm. His eyebrows are creased slightly, and she dares to conjecture that it's more due to a suddenly piqued interest rather than an already established concentration. She smiles to herself, then looks back to Gaara. "No?" she asks, innocently.

"We may have. . . shared a mutual experience." Gaara presses a hand to his forehead, as if unsure of how to properly start the conversation. Sakura, however, pays him no heed, lost to her own thoughts for the second time that morning.

"The human," she murmurs, and he nods.

"We believed it to be an irregularity incorrectly registered by our radar," he elaborates, "but then Madam Tsunade relayed your own incident to us, and I knew it to be no mistake."

Sakura roves her mind over the possibilities; though it's been proven that a neural handshake can be established, developed, and maintained between a human and a newborn Kaiju, she doesn't want to believe that such a phenomenon could be produced on a larger scale. And to fight back against the PPDC, at that. Her hand already trembles at the thought, and then Temari nudges Gaara's shoulder, silently urging him to go on.

"Also," he begins, pausing to make sure he has her full attention, "the human we were affronted with managed to venture close to the head of the Jaeger."

"You saw his face," Sai interjects, then falls silent upon a knowing look from Sakura. They both are well aware that she's figured out his reasons for being here and that she could always use the information to her advantage if she really wanted to.

"Unfortunately," Temari answers, and Sakura raises an eyebrow. The sand-haired pilot refuses to meet her eyes, and all of a sudden, the air filtering into the room feels heavy with a dreadful suspense. Sakura curls her fingers inward, as is her habit when she feels particularly cornered. Here she was, after all, enjoying an opportunity to listen in on conversation that any other pilot would normally be wont to hear, and within the span of a mere ten minutes, it's managed to get her heart beating ever quickly with each coming second.

"Three years ago," Kankurou fills in, "you were involved in one of the worst executed Jaeger missions recorded to date."

Sakura's breath hitches in her throat.

"One of your co-pilots, Sasuke Uchiha, was torn away from your Jaeger and supposedly lost to the sea. The other, Naruto Uzumaki, was left to establish his rank as perhaps the strongest 'Berserker' known to the world. And you, Sakura Haruno, were left to bleed and to die, rendered unconscious by a nasty blow to the head."

"I don't understand what this has to do with anything," she responds hoarsely, barely able to suppress the awful memory of drowning and gasping and bleeding, all mingled into one.

"The man we saw today," Gaara murmurs, a pained expression crossing his face as he reaches out to squeeze Sakura's hand, "was Sasuke Uchiha. We reviewed the image for almost two hours upon landing; the resemblance to earlier images of him was unmistakable."

There's a million thoughts that go through her head then, and all she can seem to ricochet back to is that feeling she'd decided to keep suppressed long ago, the one that spoke of a betrayal rendered true by a boy with black hair and a slowly blackening heart. She tries to remember sunshine and smiles and unkempt golden hair, but the overwhelming truth of her worst nightmares pulses in her head with a throbbing regularity. Sakura wraps a hand around the arm of her chair in an attempt to steady herself. Every part of her trembles, and she catches Gaara touching a hand to Temari and whispering some sort of instructions. The injured pilot exits the room without so much as a word.

"So the Madam's suspicions were correct," Sai speaks up. A fountain pen and piece of paper have somehow materialized in his hands, and he poises his fingers in preparation of writing what Sakura can only assume are the key points of this whole conversation. She struggles to hold onto the sound of the words around her, but the tremors shaking her body are strong and unrelenting, and she ends up closing her eyes and fighting for air.

"Sakura." Someone's palm slides along the side of her face; Gaara's, judging by the sandpaper feel.

"It seems that certain people once registered as participators in the PPDC," Sai continues, unfazed by the panic attack unfolding before him, "but no longer in service due to either an indeterminable disappearance or sudden, rogue status, have chosen to pursue the impossible by pairing up with Kaijus." He writes across his paper with lightning speed and in characters unfamiliar to anyone else in the room.

"Sakura," Gaara reiterates, and this time, he presses a damp towel (brought by Temari) to her head. Her eyes flutter halfway open to look into his, which are mired in concern. Though a thousand alarms are blaring loudly in her mind, she finds it in herself to guess what he will say next: "How long since you last saw them?"

"Three years," she murmurs, weakly. There had been a retrieval mission, she remembers, assigned by Tsunade to a group of rookie pilots at Naruto's insistence. A staggering six days had already passed since Sasuke had been left to fend for himself against the torrential waters of the Pacific and Naruto had piloted the remains of their Jaeger to the Shatterdome with not so much as a com link there to sustain him. Most of the journey is hazy in her mind, but she recalls bits and pieces, and because they tear at her more than anything, she shakes them away. The retrieval mission had been even less of a success than their original one, ending with four of the five assigned pilots near mortally wounded. Naruto himself had taken a heavy blow following the event, and within days of its culmination, he had left the Shatterdome to do God knows what. Sakura hasn't heard from him since, and as for Sasuke - well. She's surprised that her wishes from deep down were answered at all.

"I think. . . I think you may want to tell him." He lowers his head, looks into her lidded eyes. "Naruto, I mean."

Sakura lifts her eyes, and when she opens her mouth, her voice is pleading. "What did he do to you?"

At the threshold to the room, Temari shifts nervously. Kankurou presses a hand to the back of his neck and stares into the ground. The sigh that escapes Gaara's mouth is sharp enough to slice through the very fabric of the air, and Sakura feels the smallest of sobs start to build up in her throat. He reaches back to fumble for something that sits on his littered desk, a silver disc with a potpourri of official labels etched onto it. The circle is cold and hard on her lap. She shivers.

"Temari, please ask Baki if the chopper is ready for our guests," he says, completely glossing over any semblance of an answer to her question. Sakura knows, looking at the disc in her lap, that the answers are all there, in its fibers and rings. She slips the disc into her pocket and manages to stand up, albeit clumsily, her hand flying out to catch Sai's wrist within seconds. An indescribable emotion passes over his face, but he steels it soon enough, pocketing his pen and paper before standing up and making a quick salute to Gaara. He makes no move to remove her fingers from his arm, and she silently thanks Madam Marshal for providing her with an escort, asshat-of-few-words though he is.

Gaara offers one last squeeze of her hand before letting them out the door, and then Temari and Kankurou take over again. The party of four walks in silence as it makes its way up to the main level, the rattling of the elevator shaft satisfying the need to fill the silence. The chopper thrums loudly in front of them when they walk up to it, and with still shaking legs, Sakura manages to climb into her seat and buckle the appropriate straps. As Sai offers a last salute to the siblings, she leans forward and asks the co-pilot if they might have something capable of playing what's on the disc. The logical part of her brain is screaming for her to wait, but she knows that postponement will only make the churning in her belly worsen, and so when the co-pilot says "yes", she gladly thrusts the disc into his hands.

Sai raises an eyebrow at her. "Are you sure you want to do that?" he asks quietly.

"Are you sure you want to start worrying about me?" she counters, and he holds her gaze for a few seconds before backing down and leaning into the frame of his seat. The fury that burns inside her at his flippant attitude in the Suna Marshal's office, though largely overwhelmed by the brunt of her panic attack and his compliance with steadying her, still manages to trill at the fake concern that he's trying to show all of a sudden.

"Hey, Haruno," shouts the pilot, "it's on."

She directs her eyes to the screen at the center of the chopper's dashboard. The scene is a familiar one: a looming Jaeger suit affronted by a jagged, blue-tinted Kaiju with a human standing atop its head. Sakura looks keenly at the blur that is Sasuke's head. His hair is still spiked, but aside from the black cloak spotted with red clouds that he's wearing, she can't make out much of anything else. Whether there's a scar on his face or blood on his hands, she won't be able to tell. Information like that requires top-of-the-notch technology (as the Suna operatives presumably used) or a face-to-face meeting, and in this moment, Sakura doesn't know that she wants to deal with either.

The battle starts off normally; punches are thrown and limbs are grabbed. The Jaeger seems to have the upper hand, although of course not for long. Sakura finds her eyes glued to the screen as the Kaiju leaps up into the air and latches onto the center of the mechanism with its teeth, tearing a long, wide gash through the main chest plate. Though the Jaeger's camera does not catch it, minutes later, she hears the left arm being torn off, as signaled by the scream that peals from Temari's throat. The image before her starts to glitch and flicker; she doesn't look away.

And it's as if her decision is a cue, because it's then that the Kaiju makes a second, even higher leap. Its teeth find purchase in the head of the Jaeger, and Sakura watches with a sudden dread as Sasuke steps forward with a sword in hand and slices a clean circle into the protective glass. Temari, rendered useless by malfunctions in the connection between her uniform and her part of the Jaeger, yells at him to no end, and Kankurou makes a desperate lunge, only to collide with the front of the Kaiju and drag its teeth along his suit and his arm. Gaara, as the center pilot, is given no exclusive control of any part of the Jaeger, but is rather meant to reinforce any motion that his brother and/or sister makes; the only thing that might allow him to pilot the Jaeger on his own is carefully driven adrenaline and anger. He takes on a defensive stance in his suit, although Sakura knows that the weight of the complicated material will be nothing but a disadvantage to him.

She watches in stunned silence as Sasuke inches ever closer to the Marshal of Suna, a predatory look coming over his now close-up features. His feet are teetering at the very edge of the Kaiju's nose, and a tear finally streaks its way down her face as she helplessly stretches her hand out to the screen in an attempt to make stop a time that has already passed.

"Sakura," says Sai. He places a hand on her shoulder and clamps down, forcing her to look him in the eye. Another tear, and another, and another, is filtering down the peach of her face, and for all of the horror locked inside of her, she cannot find in her the words she wants to say. The video continues to play, with Gaara somehow managing to find that adrenaline and anger mid-way in the fight. "We're here," Sai murmurs pointedly, and then he's out of the chopper and striding towards the main elevators. Sakura watches blankly after him for a moment before asking the co-pilot back for the disc.

Her pattern of walking is still unsteady as she filters through the many hallways and elevator shafts that will lead to her dorm. There are at least six or seven people she doesn't greet back for the lack of response her body is currently possessing, although she doesn't really care but for one of them - Hinata Hyuuga from the Defenses Department - and with every step she takes in her heels, the world around her clamors. Sakura feels the flat of the disc burn against her thigh over the fabric of her pants. She's filled with the sudden urge to take it into her hands and snap it in two against the bone of her knee, and with trembling fingers, she withdraws it from her pocket. The labels scrawled onto it seem to make more sense now, and she wastes a little time in deciphering all of them per the few official communication ciphers she's managed to pick up over the years. When she steps in front of the door to her dorm, she makes no move to enter it, instead continuing in her decoding endeavor.

Across the hall, a door creaks open. Sakura pauses and looks up; the sight she's met with is something she's entirely unprepared for.

"Sakura. . ." murmurs one very real Naruto Uzumaki, his eyes stretched wide for the coincidence of seeing her standing there. There's a towel hung loosely around his neck, and the waters of a recent shower drip over his tanned torso and from his golden hair. She opens her mouth but is once again left at a loss for words. Naruto, though hesitant at first, makes his way to her across the hall. When the violent design of the scars lining his back starts to trace its way back into her memory, she throws a hand out to the empty air about her, fumbling helplessly for purchase. The disc slips from her hands and crashes to the floor in one, resounding sound, and then she does the one thing she's amazed she didn't succumb to sooner:

She faints.

* * *

 **A/N:** I understand that this first chapter didn't have nearly as much (okay, _zero)_ interaction between Naruto and Hinata, but I really wanted to establish a good deal of background first, and I felt like Sakura was the perfect way to do that. Though she isn't one of the two main characters in this fic, she is still definitely a pivot point for the both of them, as this chapter hopefully alludes. But anyway, thanks for reading, and _don't forget to leave a review!_


End file.
